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Sports of The Times; Few Answers As Yao Enters Long Season

SOMEWHERE between Shawn Bradley and Shaquille O'Neal lies the future of Yao Ming. While that is a margin extending over a wider territory than the Great Wall of China, which end of it he evolves to is a question that was not to be answered here last night in the second game of Yao's N.B.A. career, nor in the coming weeks, months and possibly the next couple of years.

In the finest tradition of our size-'em-up-and-spit-it-out talk-show sophistry, Yao became overnight fodder after his 11-minute, zero-point debut for the Houston Rockets on Wednesday night in Indianapolis. Of course, the same night brought rave reviews for Washington's Kwame Brown, last year's No. 1 draft pick plucked raw as a cold rain from the high school vine and later flogged as a sure-fire failure.

With that in mind, I will remind all skeptics that besides Kwame Brown and assorted others who needed time to develop, even Don Nelson had no idea what he had early on in Dallas with Dirk Nowitzki, no matter what he says now.

For now, the 7-foot-5-inch Yao is merely the N.B.A.'s reigning photo opportunity, even for the president of China, Jiang Zemin, who was recently President Bush's guest in Texas. Everywhere Yao goes, people ask how good he can be, but more than ponder this question all Yao wants to do, frankly, is turn out the light and take a long nap.

''It's tiring'' was his newly formed take of the N.B.A. lifestyle, news media circus and all, before he showed a few good instincts but more inexperience in a 13-minute, 2-point, 7-rebound performance last night in the Rockets' 83-74 victory against the Denver Nuggets at the Pepsi Center.

Being fatigued in early November, with 80 games remaining and more Chinese communities eagerly anticipating Yao's first lap around the league, does not bode well for even the most undoubted rookie. But the Rockets drafted more than an extraordinary wingspan when they selected Yao last June; they took on a partner, an emerging global player that negotiated hard for the contractual right to control its most valuable sports export whenever the Rockets stop playing, which in the Western Conference is likely to be before the playoffs begin.

By late April, notwithstanding his ability to touch the sky, Yao won't know which end is up, like most rookies, but the Chinese national team could be calling him home to train, twice a day, six days a week, as he has since anyone in the Western Conference and Hemisphere learned his name.

''For three years, he has had no rest, no breather -- Chinese basketball league, Chinese national team, Chinese basketball league, Chinese national team,'' said Jarinn Akana, a Nuggets assistant coach who formed a relationship with the Chinese team while working with Wang Zhi Zhi, another Chinese 7-footer, in Dallas as a Mavericks front office aide. Akana made several trips to China, became an assistant coach for the national team during the world championships in Indianapolis last September and better than any American knows that the greatest N.B.A. obstacle for Yao east of O'Neal will be the Chinese perception that he still belongs to them and must play by their rules.

''It's practice in the morning, eat lunch, practice in the afternoon, go to sleep, get up and do it all over again,'' Akana said. ''You live with the team, two to a room. I was with them when they went to Oakland last summer to play the U.S. team and there was Yao, squeezing in to coach, like everyone else.''

He trained all summer for the world championships, returned home in September for the Asian Games last month. After a summer sans sun, now comes the N.B.A. grind, toughest of all for the most finely tuned players, much less a 7-5 freak of nature who runs surprisingly well, like an athlete, but whose 22-year-old knees and feet are the keys to a long basketball life. ''They've got to watch him,'' Akana said. ''He could burn out, physically or mentally.''

American Chinese food aside (''I don't like P. F. Chang's'' was his one pregame statement in English), Yao could also get very comfortable with the upgraded accommodations and the American sports credo that contracts are made to be broken. Wang, now with the Clippers in Los Angeles, decided he was better off playing summer league ball in the United States than training with the Chinese team for the world championships and wound up being thrown off the team until further notice.

''If China needs me, I will be there,'' Yao said. As for how this arrangement works out long term, he added, ''I think the Rockets have a plan.'' Which was news to their coach, Rudy Tomjanovich, who said, ''It's a good question.''

History may have the answer, as it wasn't all that long ago that the Soviets tried to conditionally allow their stars to leave for the National Hockey League. The door, opened a crack, was soon run through. Money talks, in every tongue, and first class is the only way to fly when you're 7-5. At some point, when Yao awakens to the reality and rigors of N.B.A. life, the Chinese are likely to be given a choice: take him on his terms, the way it works in the West.